Reasonable cause supported by bank records, affidavits and revenue records can protect cash receipts and repayments from penalties for contravening statutory restrictions. Cash received from farmers for a proposed agricultural-land purchase, followed by cash repayment after the transaction failed because of the taxpayer's father's death, was sufficiently explained by the surrounding circumstances and documentary evidence. The penalties for accepting and repaying cash loans were therefore deleted, as the established reasonable cause negated penal consequences.

Reassessment based on search information together with enquiry into an entry-provider and related transactions may proceed under reassessment provisions where the recorded information supports that route and the prescribed approval is properly obtained; the reassessment was sustained. Where corresponding sales are accepted but purchases from an entry-provider remain unsubstantiated, the entire purchase value should not be disallowed. The taxable addition is confined to a reasonable estimate of the profit element embedded in those purchases, quantified at 6% based on the gross-profit position and other material, including a retracted statement.

For reassessment notices issued after four years from the end of the relevant assessment year, Section 151(1) requires prior sanction from the Principal Chief Commissioner, Chief Commissioner, Principal Commissioner or Commissioner. Approval obtained only from an Additional Commissioner does not satisfy this mandatory jurisdictional requirement. Consequently, a reassessment notice issued for assessment year 2015-16 after the four-year period on the basis of such approval was invalid, and the resulting reassessment order was vitiated.

An assessee-bank that made foreign-travel LFC/LTC payments while a High Court interim direction prohibited tax deduction at source could not be treated as an assessee in default. The operative direction treated such payments or reimbursements as non-income for TDS purposes and placed any eventual tax liability on employees if the writ petition failed. Compliance was binding on the bank, while contrary deduction could have exposed it to contempt. Subsequent disposal of the writ proceedings did not retrospectively create a TDS default. Consequently, the tax demand and interest for non-deduction were inapplicable and liable to be cancelled.

Qualifying corporate social responsibility donations remain deductible under section 80G unless expressly excluded. Explanation 2 to section 37(1) only denies treatment of CSR expenditure as business expenditure and does not bar deductions under other provisions; the specific exclusion for contributions to Swachh Bharat Kosh and Clean Ganga Fund cannot be extended to other approved institutions. Mandatory CSR obligations do not remove the voluntary choice of a qualifying recipient. Dividend distribution tax on dividends paid to a United Kingdom holding company is limited to the 10% treaty rate under Article 11(2), and tax collected above that rate must be refunded, consistent with Article 265 of the Constitution.

Book profit under Section 115JB(2) may be adjusted only through the exhaustive additions and deductions specified in Explanation 1. A disallowance computed under Section 14A is not, by itself, a permitted addition to book profit. Similarly, expenditure disallowed under Section 35DD in relation to a demerger cannot be added back because Explanation 1 does not cover such disallowance. Minimum alternate tax computation therefore cannot be altered by importing disallowances outside the prescribed adjustments.

Section 14A(2) permits computation of expenditure relating to exempt income under Rule 8D only after the Assessing Officer examines the assessee's accounts and records dissatisfaction with the correctness of its claim or suo motu disallowance. A bare statement that the disallowance does not comply with Rule 8D, without identifying defects in the accounts or explaining why the claim is incorrect, does not meet this statutory precondition. Consequently, a Rule 8D disallowance made without recorded, account-based satisfaction is unsustainable and must be deleted.

Charitable registration under section 12AB cannot be refused merely because objects permit charging fees or because rent is paid to a trustee's spouse. Objects relating to public facilities, medical relief, poverty relief, education, skill development and public welfare remain charitable where profits cannot be privately distributed and activities are genuinely pursued. Food distribution, marriage assistance and Gau Seva supported genuineness; unverified concerns over related-party rent and residential use required examination rather than a finding of diversion. Section 80G approval could not be denied once section 12AB registration was due, and the Form 10AB application was timely under the extended filing deadline. Assessment authorities may examine ongoing statutory compliance.

Principles of natural justice require a meaningful opportunity to examine or cross-examine public officials whose inspection reports materially support an assessment on disputed facts. Reports concerning the physical character and cultivation of land were central to rejecting an explanation that transactions represented agricultural income; title-deed descriptions alone were not conclusive. Although cross-examination is not automatic in assessment proceedings, it is necessary where required for a fair hearing, and an appellate remedy does not bar writ relief when denial would cause loss of a forum. Fresh proceedings must also permit examination of witnesses produced on the requested extended date and allow further evidence.

Section 264 provides wide, beneficial revisional jurisdiction to relieve an assessee from over-assessment, including where the excess tax results from the assessee's own mistake or failure to claim relief in the return. Expiry of the period for filing a revised return under Section 139(5) does not bar revision where the same income has been taxed in two assessment years. Treating a disallowance in one year and its reversal in another as separate events cannot justify double taxation. Retention of tax not lawfully due contravenes Article 265. The Commissioner must examine reconciliations and the double-taxation claim on merits rather than mechanically reject revision by applying standards associated with Section 263.

Audited accounts of a foreign company undertaking a qualifying turnkey power project cannot be rejected merely because they show losses, work-in-progress, revenue-recognition issues or freight-cost variations, unless material defects are established. A satisfactorily explained loss, including one arising from increased ocean-freight costs, does not justify presumptive profit computation. For transfer pricing, a third-party contract price may constitute a reliable internal Comparable Uncontrolled Price where the Indian project office executes the contract, bears the relevant risks and rewards, and receives the full contract revenue. In those circumstances, the internal CUP method is preferable to TNMM, and no TNMM-based adjustment is warranted.

Discounted Cash Flow Method may support fair market value of shares issued by a newly incorporated company even before its later notification under Rule 11UA, where it was already a recognised valuation approach. Section 56(2)(viib) permits valuation by a prescribed method or another method substantiated to the Assessing Officer's satisfaction. Net Asset Value Method may not capture a newly incorporated company's commercial potential. Procedural prescription of valuation methods cannot displace substantive rights without substantial legal breach. The Assessing Officer may examine defects in the valuation report or methodology but should not substitute the valuer's commercial estimate of expected return with an independently selected rate.

Identity-theft objections to transaction information linked to a PAN do not, without conclusive enquiry, prevent reassessment proceedings under the amended framework. At the Section 148-A stage, the relevant question is whether the matter is fit for a Section 148 notice, and substantial transaction information is relevant material. A GST communication that does not conclusively determine identity theft cannot establish that the taxpayer did not undertake the transactions. The defence requires evidence and examination during reassessment. Once the taxpayer substantiates non-involvement, the Revenue must produce primary positive evidence that the taxpayer undertook the disputed transactions; disputed information alone does not shift that burden.

The statutory eighteen-month period for an Interim Board to decide a pending settlement application begins on its first allotment and receipt by that Board, not on a later administrative transfer. Under Sections 245D(4A)(iii), 245D(9)(iii) and 245M(2), prior exercise of jurisdiction, including calling for a Rule 9 report under the e-Settlement Scheme, establishes that allotment had occurred. An administrative movement of the file cannot restart or extend the prescribed period, since repeated transfers could otherwise indefinitely enlarge the deadline. The period is mandatory; orders passed after its expiry are time-barred, without jurisdiction and a nullity.

Where a dealer states the date on which an assessment order was communicated, the Revenue bears the burden of disproving that date with cogent material. In the absence of rebuttal evidence, limitation for a statutory appeal must run from the dealer's declared communication date rather than the date of the assessment order. Dismissal of the appeal solely as time-barred on the basis of the order date was therefore invalid, and the appellate order was quashed in favour of the assessee.

Revocation of GST registration cannot be rejected solely for failure to file a timely reply where the only discrepancy in the show-cause notice-interest on delayed tax payment-has been paid and acknowledged in Form GST DRC-04. Non-consideration of that acknowledged compliance is material to the revocation application and requires an opportunity to submit a reply before a fresh determination. The rejection was set aside, and the revocation application was directed to be reconsidered after permitting submission of a reply.

Ex parte GST adjudication based on an alleged mismatch between GSTR-3B and GSTR-1 requires a further reasonable opportunity where the assessee seeks to substantiate that the differential turnover relates to export of services. Earlier responses to departmental intimation, circumstances causing non-participation in adjudication, and Board circulars allowing transaction documents and certificates to establish transaction nature support reconsideration. The adjudication and time-barred appellate orders were set aside, and proceedings were restored to the adjudicating authority for a reasoned determination after receiving supporting evidence.

GST recovery for a deceased proprietor's liabilities cannot be enforced against a separate private limited company merely through recovery proceedings, because the company is legally distinct from the proprietary concern. Liability of legal representatives or the deceased person's estate must be assessed under section 93(1)(a) or section 93(1)(b) of the CGST/KGST framework. Where adjudication fails to examine whether heirs continued the business or whether an estate is available for recovery, the statutory basis for liability remains unaddressed. Fresh consideration should permit the legal heirs to respond, while objections concerning separate show-cause notices for the same tax period remain open.

Statutory GST appellate remedy may be pursued where the petitioner files an appeal within two weeks, makes the required statutory pre-deposit, and submits a delay-condonation application. No merits of the challenge to the impugned GST order were adjudicated. The writ petition was disposed of with liberty to invoke the appellate process subject to these conditions.

GST registration cancelled for continuous non-filing of returns may be considered for revocation even after expiry of the prescribed portal-based application period. Where online filing is unavailable because the time limit has elapsed, a revocation application may be submitted to the competent authority, including in physical form if the portal does not accept it. The applicant was permitted to file the application within two weeks, and the competent authority was required to entertain and decide it in accordance with law within three weeks thereafter.